Hungover Cat

I am gutted. Yesterday an upset bottle of Highland Park splashed onto my cat, Minky. Although it was a minature, and at most 40 ml were lost, my grief was indescribable.

I suspected something was wrong when a confusedly staggering and plaintively crying moggy appeared under my feet, and to add insult to her injury, caught half a mug of luckwarm tea in her face. After deep, deep sleep later, she angrily swiped away any attempts to pet her head.

On a serious note, I discovered that alcohol is not just non-lethal to cats, but is also used as an emergency antidote against ethylene glycol (main constituent of antifreeze) poisoning. Minky certainly does seek out the taste of bleach, but I did not know cats also have a predilection for sweet-tasting ethylene glycol and as little as one teaspoon could result in painful death.

Symptoms involve:

1) CNS Depression Phase – ethylene glycol is rapidly absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. Within 30 minutes to 12 hours of ingestion the cat show the following symptoms:

I had known of the metabolic processes behind ethylene glycol poisoning in humans, and that ethanol would be preferentially metabolized by the liver thus allowing the ethylene glycol to be excreted in urine; so this makes sense. Note, I am not a vet, so if anyone suspects their cat (or child and, even, dog) has ingested antifreeze, professional assistance should be sought immediately.